Cintas Corporation

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Cintas Corporation announces fiscal 2024 third quarter earnings release conference call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Jared Mattingly, Vice President and Treasurer, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you for joining us. With me is Todd Schneider, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mike Hansen, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We will discuss our fiscal 2024 third quarter results. After our commentary, we will open the call to questions from analysts. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor from civil litigation for forward-looking statements. This conference call contains forward-looking statements. that reflect the company's current views as to future events and financial performance. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those we may discuss. I refer you to the discussion on these points contained in our most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I will now turn the call over to Todd.

Thank you, Jared. Due to the outstanding dedication and execution of our employees, whom we call partners, we delivered very strong results for our third quarter. Total revenue for the third quarter grew 9.9% to $2.41 billion. The revenue dollars represent record quarterly revenue. We are pleased with the performance of each of our businesses. Our revenue growth remains robust and we have good momentum in the business. New business remains strong. Our sales team continues to operate at a high level. We are seeing broad success across the many verticals, particularly within our focus verticals, as well as our cross-selling efforts and penetration of new products and services within our existing customers. Retention levels are strong and remain at very attractive levels. Our strong revenue growth flowed through to our bottom line. Gross margin for the third quarter increased 220 basis points to a record 49.4%, an increase of 14.9%. Operating income was a record 21.6%, an increase of 16.6%. Diluted EPS grew a robust 22.3% to $3.84. Cash flow remained strong. Net cash provided by operating activities in the third quarter grew 32.8% over the prior year. In the third quarter, we continued to invest in our businesses through capital expenditures of $107 million. During the third quarter, we made acquisition purchases of $111 million. On March 15th, we paid shareholders $137.6 million in quarterly dividends, an increase of 17.1% from the amount paid the previous March. Our strong cash flow gives us flexibility to choose how we deploy our capital And through three quarters, we have deployed over $1.4 billion of capital across our priorities of capital expenditures, acquisitions, dividends, and buybacks. I would like to thank our employees whom we call partners for their continued focus on our customers, our shareholders, and each other. Before turning the call over to Mike to provide details of our third quarter results, I'll provide our updated financial expectations for our fiscal year. we are increasing our financial guidance. We're raising our annual revenue expectations from a range of $9.48 billion to $9.56 billion to a range of $9.57 billion to $9.6 billion, a total growth rate of 8.6 to 8.9%. Also, we are raising our annual diluted EPS expectations from a range of $14.35 to $14.65 to a range of $14.80 to $15, a growth rate of 13.9% to 15.5%. Mike?